


Feeling Your Way Back

by TheRothwoman



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, OT3, Past Sexual Assault, Rating May Change, Recovery, Scars, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, Touch-Starved, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23332144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRothwoman/pseuds/TheRothwoman
Summary: Back at the castle and the Belmont Hold after Lindenfeld, the trio is together again, but none of them are in good enough shape to do anything more than rest and recover and try to heal each other. But Alucard in particular has a newly complicated relationship with his own flesh and the concept of skin-touch in general, and it'll take some work to get that feeling back.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 75
Kudos: 193





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _*steps off the gangplank*_
> 
> Good tidings to you, fellow sailors of the Trephacard. I come to humbly offer my services as an emissary from the good ship Stucky of the MCU Fleet. I know that we were recently graced with a new season of our show in which, to put it mildly, some shit went down, and that some of the shit that went down involved a beloved character being physically violated. In my last sailing through these waters, I attempted to address this subject of recovery through touch in a verse titled [Re-establishing Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7134470), and I would like to volunteer my efforts to do so again here. I only hope that I can do this venture justice. (Additional thanks to crewmates [Justsayapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justsayapple) and Nightfeathers for beta-reading!)

**Prologue**

No one was ever going to touch him again. For now, he was going to keep that as a rule: a positive. It was just as much a safeguard as the stone walls of the castle. But as much as Alucard stood by that statement as an assertion, there was a tiny part of him not entirely stamped out by recent events that still whimpered it pitifully on the floor of his old room, wrapped in the bloodied sheet: _No one is ever going to touch me again._

Sometimes it was an effort to touch his own flesh, sometimes he found himself grasping at his skin and being unable to let go of himself. The first time he’d bathed after that night with Taka and Sumi, when the façade of new companionship had shattered and breathing had turned to burning and bleeding, he couldn’t do much more than just sit silently in the water for minutes on end. The silver burns weren’t nearly as severe as the gash on his chest that came from his first duel with his father. They didn’t require another prolonged healing slumber in a coffin, and frankly Alucard sincerely doubted that would work even if he tried. But that meant he would have to deal with them consciously, which would be no easy feat.

In looking through his mother’s old medical notes, he identified a salve that could theoretically help and compiled the ingredients with hands trembling more than was advisable for putting together any remedy. Rubbing it to his forearm produced a numbing sensation that alarmed Alucard for the first moment, almost as though it was calmly melting the applied part of his arm from existence. But something quickly shifted in his mind and he started to find the feeling perversely reassuring. The marks, the violated skin, they weren’t gone. But if Alucard closed his eyes, or even just looked away, it was easy to believe they were. What started as an experimental daubing of the salve turned into well over a half-hour of him just sitting there repeatedly rubbing the same portion of his arm, weaving back and forth between trying to make his arm disappear and needing the touch to remind him that he was still here. He was here, he had form, the form was damaged…he needed to make it go away…but just the damage, not the form…or would erasing the form with the damage be easier?

He wound up depleting the entire first batch of the salve on that.

Lying in bed at night came with a confused dichotomy of its own. Alucard found himself alternating between layering himself in as many blankets as he could find—a soft but protective shell that shut the rest of the world out—and lying completely naked, a show of defiance against anything that dared harm him. The latter never lasted long. There was something tiny in the back of his mind wondering if leaving his skin exposed like that would help him regain some sense of agency, but it always left him more tense. He never fell asleep like that. After clearing out the remnants from…that night, he changed his bedsheets every day for over a week before keeping one set on for well over the next week. Letting his own scent seep into it, adding its own layer of security. When he was finally able to bring himself to wash those sheets, he regretted it sooner than he thought. Any unpleasant smells were gone, but it made for a blank slate; something he’d craved at first, but now very much wished to wear back into a state of familiarity.

The next day, they came back.

* * *

Trevor and Sypha were by no means deterred by the rotting corpses staked outside the castle, bloodstains nearly black and viscera picked apart by local wildlife. If anything, it made them hurry to the front door faster.

“We can’t possibly’ve been gone _that_ long, can we?” Trevor wondered aloud as he raised a hand to pound on the door. Sypha shivered next to him.

“I think we’ve both seen worse in less time by now,” said Sypha, grimly. The trek back from Lindenfeld had been long and quiet. Not silent, but marked much more by lowered voices and little laughter than warm banter. The castle felt like an extension of that quiet at first, large and looming but giving no sound but for the wind whistling through its cracks. They weren’t sure how audible the sound of approaching footsteps would be from the other side of the door, since the last time they were here the doors had either been already open or had the sound of clashing vampires behind them. They would have to wonder longer, as the doors suddenly creaked open seemingly of their own accord and allowed them entrance to the castle.

* * *

Alucard hung back in the shadows at first, waiting to see what brave soul was the first to approach the threshold of the castle since he’d posted his dead warning signs. He hadn’t entirely decided what he even _was_ going to do when he found out, but he found his muscles tensing nonetheless. Then once the doors opened…ah. There was no mistaking that scent.

 _Two_ brave souls. Just as the forest of skulls had not deterred his mother when she first arrived.

“Alucard?” came a distinctively Trevor Belmont timbre, followed by Sypha’s “Are you h…”

He stepped out from behind the pillar to face them for the first time in weeks?…months? Voice catching, he rasped, “I’m here.”

There was something different in their eyes. Trevor had had a certain darkness to his face when they first met, something Alucard had seen fade—not disappear, but lessen—during their time traveling together. It had returned in full force, and now reached Sypha as well. Alucard knew she was both fierce as a storm and steady as stone, but a storm looked like what had happened to her and stone was what remained. He had replayed their theoretical reunion over and over again in his mind since they left, and whatever he had pictured had never included this. Looking at them was like seeing ghosts—not because of how long they had been gone, but because of how haunted they were.

“You’re…back.”

“We are,” said Sypha, sounding like speaking any positive was causing her effort.

“You look like you’ve seen Hell,” Alucard continued.

“Funny you should mention that,” said Trevor, with the tiniest of eyebrow-raising.

“What happened?”

“You first.” Trevor jabbed a thumb back towards the doors. Referring to the bodies, no doubt. Alucard opened his mouth first before realizing he had forgotten to speak along with it.

“…You were gone.”

“And now we’re here,” said Sypha. “Now we’re back.” She approached Alucard and reached for his hand, which he withdrew. Pausing, she looked back at him with…surely those wide eyes of hers had been a lighter shade of blue when he last saw them, right?

“Let’s sit down and talk first,” said Alucard, gesturing towards a side corridor that led to a small parlor with surprisingly sparse furnishings that had started gathering dust from disuse. The three of them sat in silence at first, Trevor and Sypha in adjacent chairs across from Alucard on a threadbare footstool, not sure who should start, or how. But then Trevor, being Trevor, finally broke the silence.

“Who were those two on the spikes outside?” he asked. After such a direct remark, Alucard expected this to be the moment when Sypha would elbow him and advise him to be more tactful or something like that. But that moment didn’t come.

“Let’s just call them ill-fated guests for the time being.”

“So they just fell on the spikes themselves, then?” Trevor continued. Sypha still didn’t elbow him, but Alucard saw a crease across her face that seemed to indicate that she was at least considering it.

“No,” said Alucard, trying to choose his next words carefully but losing out as his mind decided instead to tear between explaining things as quickly as possible and putting off the crux of the matter for as long as he could. “I put them there after what they…”

“What did they do?” Sypha asked, concern laden in her voice. At first, Alucard wasn’t sure if that concern was directed at him or at the bodies outside as the ultimately guilty party. But then he saw Sypha’s eyes fall on his wrists, seeing the silver burns and catching her breath. “What did they do to _you_? On your wrists, are those…”

“Silver burns,” Trevor concluded grimly. His jaw clenched and he added, “did they want you restrained or dead?” Alucard tensed, his right hand reaching for his left wrist and grasping it hard for a few moments until the sensation felt wrong again and he quickly let go. His voice shuddered as he drew in another breath to speak again.

“I…missed you both terribly,” he said. “And I fear I misplaced some trust in unexpected company…and some missteps were made in your absence…”

“And we should have returned sooner,” Sypha added. Alucard noticed Trevor averting his gaze and nodding slightly while furrowing his brow in…was that shame? Sypha continued, “I know we all had our own reasons for parting ways before but…it seems things have changed quite dramatically. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea in the first place.”

“Sypha was eager to get back on the road and continue the work we’d started,” Trevor continued, “and I’d just assumed you’d want time to yourself after…all of that nasty business.” Something in Alucard’s soul almost wanted to chuckle at that, in the same way that the three of them had all chuckled at Trevor’s retort to “I’m disturbed to find that I had more of a childhood than you did” in the ruins above the Belmont Hold all that time ago. He remembered Sypha telling him how inelegantly Trevor had handled his attempt at a “you’re not alone” talk to her right after the Speakers had left, and this was sounding rather familiar.

“Considering your past,” Alucard said with the faintest, barely perceptible smile he’d ever made in his life, “I suppose I can’t entirely fault you for assuming others would want solitude after a crisis.”

Sypha began again, “we should have…”

“You can stop with the ‘shoulds’,” Alucard interjected, raising his hand slightly. “Look, let’s review the facts of that time: there were still night hordes about that needed to be dealt with, and who knows how many hundreds of innocents in the countryside all but defenseless against them, if not for you. Here, we had both the broken castle and the exposed Belmont Hold, vast repositories of centuries of knowledge with no keeper or protector, if not for me. I was ready to make this place my grave, but you both gave me something to live for here.” Alucard looked at Trevor in particular at this, since that had all really been his idea in the first place. “You left, and you left me alone…but you left me as a guardian, something with a meaning to last. I stayed with purpose and you left with purpose, not as an act of malice. But _they_ …” his gaze dropped, again unsure of how much he was ready to disclose about the exact nature of that night, “…tried to dispose of me when they believed I was of no more use to them, or was being a hindrance.”

“So those two outside deserved it,” said Trevor, and Alucard could hear some of the leather in his outfit tense slightly as the last Belmont’s muscles tightened. “They hurt you.”

“In…more ways than one,” Alucard said, feeling the edges of his restraint starting to crack, partly in response to Trevor’s words and tone but also in response to Sypha looking at him in increasing distress. “You’re lucky you’re the first to come here after…them. I fear what might have become of anyone else.” Alucard’s voice started to break, images of a growing field of rotting bodies on stakes creeping into his mind’s eye. The forest of skulls as some kind of grotesque crown across what was now a peaceful land. He shivered as he tried to continue speaking. “I can’t…I can’t let that be the first of many…” His vision blurred along with the line between whether he was really saying this mantra to Trevor and Sypha or to himself. “I…will _not_ become my father…please, I won’t slip further…” A shimmer of blue drew close on his right as he felt Sypha reach for his hand again, and this time he didn’t pull back. At least, not at first. Her hand gripped his and a sharp shudder ran up his arm, causing his hand to fly back to his abdomen. The sensation lingered. Shame gripped Alucard’s heart. Consciously, logically, he knew Sypha would not harm him. She could incinerate anything in her path, but she had reached out to take his arm in the aftermath of destroying Dracula. She was…she was Sypha. This reflex alarmed him. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry…touching skin…feels wrong…after…wait…” Alucard’s mind raced around for a quick solution. He wanted her to hold him _without_ holding him, somehow? But he couldn’t bear worsening those sad eyes and slightly trembling mouth of hers. Suddenly he remembered: his gloves, pulled from his back pocket. He slipped them on and then took Sypha’s hand properly. That felt better, even with the lingering awareness of the unwanted reflex _._ “Hmm, touching and helping hands,” he said. “Something you’re both quite skilled at in your own ways. But you…” Alucard met Sypha’s gaze again. “I’ve never seen you look helpless before.”

Trevor and Sypha finally began to explain what had recently transpired, what had left them so devastated. The village of Lindenfeld, the cultists, the secrets below the priory, the rush of burning screaming souls filling the sky, the magician who sought portals to another world, the Judge who had worked with them but led a secret life of luring children to their deaths, and all the destruction that wouldn’t even have started if they had just been quicker.

“We’d had so much success with all the little things, we were bound to face failure at some point,” said Trevor, resignedly. “And…that’s hardly the first time I’ve seen a whole load of people go up in smoke. But that doesn’t mean I want to get used to it.”

“We were supposed to help,” Sypha added with a quiver in her voice that Alucard had never heard before, “but we were too late in the end.”

Alucard let out a breath. “I suppose we’re all a bit helpless right now, in our own ways,” he said. “I’ve barely even felt right in my own skin since…that night.”

“I know the Belmont Hold wasn’t much of a medical library,” Trevor started to offer, “but did you find…”

“Not like that,” said Alucard, reaching to grip one of his burns again, but also feeling his legs tighten as he drew his knees together slightly. “The burns were one thing, but this was…something more.”

Sypha gave Alucard’s hand a small squeeze—just firm enough to be reassuring but light enough that it didn’t send a spark of warning up his arm that he was being grabbed—then turned back to Trevor. “We’re little use to anyone in this state. I know you said we were living your life now, Trevor, but we shouldn’t be…not like this.” She kept her left hand on Alucard’s while reaching out her right hand to Trevor, bringing their trio together. “We should be helping—healing—each other first.”

Trevor let the shadow hang on his face for a little while longer, eyes flickering between Sypha’s hands and Alucard’s hands before finally turning up to both of them. “Yeah,” he said at last, “we probably really should be. We’re in bad shape and you’re in bad shape.” He looked back at Alucard and reached out with his right hand, which he took. The three of them sat like that, hands joined in a quiet but warm circle, for a few more moments before Sypha reached out to take the mens’ other hands and pull them all into a cluster. A unified grip on each other when everything else was let go, and a silent declaration of what had gone unspoken before.

“We should be… _us_ again,” she said.

 _Us_.

The word was so simple yet carried so much. Alucard felt his throat rumble awkwardly in what it took him a moment to realize was a chuckle. “You know,” he began, “Father once told me that one of the first things mother said to him on the day they met was, ‘start with me and I’ll start with you’.” He caught the edge of his tiny smile from earlier and made it fuller this time, finally bringing himself to look both his partners in the eyes without fearing what pain and anguish they’d see in his. “I’d say that’s sound advice right now. Start with me…”

“And I’ll start…” said Trevor.

“With you,” Sypha finished.

Alucard held their cluster of hands together as best he could from his position inside it, and stood up with Trevor and Sypha, together—before he tried to take a step and found his feet suddenly failing him. He stumbled into the two of them as they tried to hold him up, only to fall together in a heap on the rug. Almost as though they had let themselves fall, just this one more time, to feel the crushing magnitude of everything they had been through. To be vulnerable under its weight, but at last to not be vulnerable alone. Alucard’s vision was blurred over with tears again, but this time he had no further words to be spoken that would be dampened by them, and he didn’t have to shed them in solitude. Nor, it seemed, was he the only one with tears to shed now. He let himself weep into their arms as the three of them—the hunter, the scholar, and the weary sleeping soldier—clung tightly to each other against a broken world.

“We’ll start with us,” Alucard choked out through a sob.

He heard another sob and a hard sniffle on his right, along with the feeling of a head nodding. “We’ll start with us,” said Sypha, just above a whisper.

He felt a hand strong with familiar warmth grip him even more tightly on his left. “We’ll start with us,” Trevor vowed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the reunion has been covered pretty thoroughly in other fics by this point, but there was still some stuff I wanted to establish so this turned into an adventure in "let's make these characters a smidge more emotionally mature than usual to get my point across faster so we can get to the meat of the fic." Either way, first Castlevania fic, wish me luck!


	2. Bed: Sypha

**Bed: Sypha**

The sleeping arrangements took a bit of sorting out. Alucard was, again, torn between wanting complete isolation from anything that might enter his bed and wanting to stay curled up as close to his returned partners as possible for days on end. The prospect of having touch again, to know the ease and calm of skin against skin—not from passing strangers with ulterior motives, but from people he knew and loved—still gnawed at him. But there still lingered the unwanted reflex, the ghost of _you remember what happened Last Time_ , and he hadn’t entirely banished that yet. Nor did he expect it to be entirely banished anytime soon, but he wanted to. _Needed_ to. They soon came to a bedding compromise: taking a room with two beds and divvying them up at first to avoid overwhelming Alucard with all of their closest proximity at once.

The first few nights were essentially their previous sleeping arrangements: Alucard by himself and Trevor and Sypha sharing the other bed. Alucard lay awake for what must have been over an hour after Trevor and Sypha had dozed off on the first night, leaving the room silent save for the occasional rustling of wind in the trees outside, and Trevor’s mercifully quiet snoring. Despite the fact that they now properly recognized themselves as “three” and not just “a couple,” Alucard stayed facing away from them at first, feeling a need to give them some show of respect for what they’d built themselves in the past however many weeks. Watching them in bed, even though they were all sleeping in the same quarters by choice, would have felt almost voyeuristic; a pining look at what he had missed out on and was now openly welcomed to join, even though his body wouldn’t allow him to give himself over to them completely yet. But eventually Alucard did turn over to gaze at Trevor and Sypha from his own pillow for a bit, and it didn’t feel wrong. It was actually quite calming, seeing that despite all the roughness and turmoil they had been through, they could still be granted peace. It didn’t take Alucard much longer to find his own sleep.

Sypha was the first to share his bed, half-joking that putting Alucard with Trevor ran the risk of the two of them reigniting their old petty bickering in the middle of the night and then none of them would get any sleep. Alucard was actually surprised by how quickly she drifted off, considering their day had involved nothing more strenuous than an afternoon walk through the woods to gather some local herbs and roots, but her sleepy breathing had an almost meditative effect on him. He lay on his back for a while, not quite sleeping but still sinking into the comfort of his mind at rest. But then he felt trembling. For half a barely-conscious second, Alucard thought there might be some small creature that had made its way into the castle and was now rustling under the bed. No, of course not—the motion was coming from atop the bed, not beneath it. He looked over at his bedmate. Sypha was scrunched up and shaking, her calm breathing quickened and roughened to short panicked gasps. A nightmare, it seemed. At first, Alucard was a bit puzzled; Trevor and Sypha had never struck him as the nightmare-prone type…whatever that meant. But he quickly dismissed that odd notion and reached over to gently shake her shoulder. With the sheets and her nightdress, he was still able to give her a firm enough grip without making skin contact. Sypha jerked awake with one more gasp, eyes flitting hurriedly about for a moment before settling on Alucard next to her.

“Oh.”

“Sypha, are you alright?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a wince. “Not one of my better moments.”

“Don’t worry,” said Alucard, tentatively reaching an arm over her. “May I?”

“Please.” Sypha scooted in closer as Alucard drew the bundle of sheets with her into his arms, resting his chin protectively on her head. He often forgot how small she was, physically, compared to himself and Trevor. Her sheer range of magic led her to command tremendous space, both in and out of combat. Were she fully alert and on her feet, it almost would have felt like holding an explosive to his body. But for now she was just…very human. Even the breathing directly on his neck, typically a vulnerable spot, carried no trace of threat. It suddenly occurred to Alucard that he didn’t think he had ever really _held_ someone like this before? He and Trevor and Sypha had had their awkward reunion clinging pile, of course, but that wasn’t the same as this. He wasn’t entirely sure where the instinct came from, apart from remembering how his mother did when he’d had nightmares as a child, but he was grateful for it all the same. If Alucard couldn’t solve his touch-starvation right away, this was a most welcome close second. He stroked a soothing thumb against her shoulderblade as she put her arms around him.

“You got…warmer,” Sypha murmured into Alucard’s nightdress.

“Sorry?”

“You…are warm.”

“I’m not sure if your basis for comparison,” said Alucard, trying to smother the urge to scoff lightly, “is the general notion that vampires are cold, or your previous assessment of me as ‘an icy well’ or ‘a cold spot in the room’.”

“Oh no, you did hear that, didn’t you?” Sypha breathed a regretful sigh and pulled back slightly to look at him properly. “You…certainly were at that time. But, that time has long passed.” She smiled. “And I am glad that you don’t feel cold anymore.”

Alucard returned the smile. “I’m glad of that, too.” Sypha nodded and settled back against him with a small contented sigh. “You had a nightmare?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s been the same one since Lindenfeld,” said Sypha. “Well, not _exactly_ the same one, but they all have…the same…feeling? Alucard, do you dream?”

“I do,” he replied. “Not every night, but often enough to recognize recurring themes and patterns. You’re in two different places in two different dreams, but walking on the ground gives you the same uneasy sense of imbalance in your legs. That sort of thing.”

“Yes,” said Sypha. “It’s always a settlement of some sort, sometimes a small village and sometimes large town, and something has always gone wrong. And I can never yell loud enough. It’s like a hand has grabbed at the inside of my throat and is strangling out all but the faintest sounds.” Alucard felt her shudder again. “And I can never block my gaze from the horrors around me. My dream eyes force me to see through every solid object I put up. Closing my eyes, holding my arms in front of my face, even turning around does not spare me from them.”

“I see…that sounds horrible,” said Alucard, holding her a bit tighter. “So not an exact recount of the event, but a greater sensation of…”

“I think you said it yourself when we came back: helplessness,” Sypha concluded, grimly, gripping him a bit tighter as well. Just like he had once Sypha and Trevor had finished recounting the tragedy at Lindenfeld upon their return, Alucard wished he had a better response that wasn’t a platitude or a nudge to a broader subject. Failing that, he offered his sentiments anyway:

“I’m sure you did all you could.”

“If only it were that simple,” said Sypha, sadly. “I think Trevor made his peace with it already, if ‘peace’ is even the right word. I’ve heard his nightmares too, but he won’t talk about them. At least, not in any way that might be helpful. He’s just accepted them as a normal part of life now.”

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t come to me as much of a surprise,” said Alucard. “Does he at least offer comfort after yours?”

“Physically, yes,” Sypha nodded. “Like I said, he won’t talk, but he is warm. Almost too warm sometimes—more like a baker’s oven, except it smells like sweat and leather and not of fresh bread.” She offered a small laugh. “Something for you to look forward to with him, I guess.”

“Sypha Belnades,” Alucard groaned with a slightly exaggerated roll of the eyes that he realized too late wouldn’t be visible to her in the first place, “you’re not actually wishing nightmares upon me so that I might be graced with the privilege of being smothered in Belmont body heat, are you?”

“Well, my feet tend to freeze at night, and you seem to be somewhere in the middle…so I suppose we all balance each other out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trevor, you're up next. (""Fun"" fact: that thing with Sypha being unable to block out images in her nightmares has been a recurring thing for me for years and it is The Fucking Worst :))))
> 
> **BONUS:** Now with [art](https://therothwoman.tumblr.com/post/631816349626351616/oh-sypha-are-you-alright-he-asked-im) from the lovely [Jo!](https://poidemnazad.tumblr.com/)


	3. Bed: Trevor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll show you mine, if you show me yours first.

**Bed: Trevor**

Whatever god Trevor prayed to—or used to, since he was excommunicated—Alucard gave them a silent thanks that the vagrant Belmont had not put up much of a fuss about bathing. He wondered if it was the fragrance of the soaps from Damascus or the prospect of letting Sypha wash his hair that made the venture more enticing. Either way, it made Alucard’s sensory experience of sharing a bed with Trevor markedly more pleasant, even after the realization that Sypha wasn’t wrong about his advanced warmth either. Trevor slept with his back to Alucard their first night, which he took as a tremendous compliment. Not in the tone of their usual deadpan snark with each other, but in the sense of  _ Trevor trusts me with this level of vulnerability and exposure to him. He feels safe even where he can’t watch me.  _ On the other hand, though, Sypha did need to coax Trevor into putting more care in the modesty department. Trevor, it turned out, was not a huge fan of nightdresses and also didn’t own any undergarments. The solution in the end was a pair generously donated by Alucard and begrudgingly accepted by Trevor.

In the absence of anything but part of his sheet covering his upper body, Trevor’s greater range of scars was now visible. Alucard found himself fascinated by them, wondering how many Trevor had, or even knew about in places he couldn’t see. The dhampir still hadn’t revealed the full extent of his silver burns to the others, always either keeping most of his clothes on or strategically covering himself when the need arose. He would show them, in time. But for now he mused on Trevor’s scars instead, idly wondering if that would help mentally prepare him for explaining his own marred flesh.

“So how did this one happen?”

Trevor couldn’t sleep as readily on the second night, so Alucard figured he might as well ask. The scar in question was on Trevor’s right bicep, relatively small compared to some of his others.

“Oh, this?” Trevor mumbled as he straightened up. “Nothing too exciting. Just fell out of my tree when I was eight. I was fine on landing, but I hit a particularly sharp bit of broken branch on the way down. It’s a miracle I didn’t catch any splinters there, too.”

“Hmm. And what about those?” said Aluard, pointing to an x-shaped pair of scars on Trevor’s left forearm.

“More recent,” Trevor continued. “Probably less than a week after we were here last. Ran into a night creature with exactly too many spikes on its tail, and it loved to thrash that thing around. …Shit, I wonder if that’s what it feels like to be on the other end of my whip.”

Alucard, having once been at the other end of Trevor’s whip himself, opted not to comment. “And those?” He pointed to a trio of what looked like claw marks on Trevor’s right pectoral.

“A very literally demonic dog that needed some purchase as it jumped up and tried to bite my face off…sorry, are you making a map of me or something?”

“Not entirely,” said Alucard, still gazing over the scars. “Just curious. It seems you and I have more scars in common than I thought.”

Trevor blinked at him. “You know, as someone who can levitate, I can’t imagine you did a whole lot of falling out of trees as a boy. Unless you did and that’s why you learned in the first place?”

“I meant in terms of quantity, not quality,” said Alucard, propping up his chin against his left hand.

Trevor regarded him darkly and tensed a bit. “Your silver burns are so much worse than what you’ve shown us, aren’t they?”

Alucard hesitated for a moment before responding. “To put it mildly.”

“How much worse?”

“You’ll know.” Alucard looked down and tugged absently at the edge of one of the sleeves on his nightdress. He had long since discarded the one that Taka and Sumi had tugged off him that night, burned in the fireplace of the same room before he’d taken their bodies out. This one had almost no frills and covered much more of his legs. “Someday, let’s compare scars and I’ll tell you whose is worse.”

“And I’ve showed you mine first,” said Trevor, also looking down at Alucard’s wrists before reaching out a hand to him. “Can I at least…?” Alucard paused and then held out an arm, taking care to extend it far enough that the sleeve still separated his bare skin from Trevor’s outstretched hand. He took it and considered the dark discoloration where the silver had first taken hold. Alucard wondered how much detail Trevor could actually see in the low light, now that the fireplace had dwindled down to cinders and there was more brightness coming from the moon outside. But before he could wonder this aloud, Trevor leaned down and kissed the burn with a gentleness Alucard was not expecting. He thought the feeling of chapped lips anywhere on him in this state might make him want to peel the skin off, but there was something that just seemed…right—in a macabre sort of way—about the meeting of two parts of damaged flesh on damaged people. “If either of us should have scars from the misuse of tools in the Belmont Hold, it should be me.”

Alucard took a moment to let the sentiment sink in. This was by no means the first time Trevor Belmont had given him more of a kindness than he felt he deserved, but it was certainly the most intimate. Alucard looked back up at him. “You think that…”

“Seems most likely. Consecrated silver isn’t really something people just tend to carry around with them.”

“You’re…probably right.” Alucard carefully withdrew his hand and realized that the ghost of Trevor’s kiss still lingered, but not in the way he expected. It didn’t feel like an extra mark, it felt like it was…missing something? Missing  _ symmetry _ somehow? He found himself raising his other wrist to his own lips and pressing them against the second burn, which seemed to ease the strange discomfort somewhat.

Trevor raised an eyebrow before holding out his hands again. “Want me to even that up?” Alucard thought for a moment and nodded, putting both his wrists forward for Trevor to take gingerly at the sleeves and to kiss equally. He actually felt somewhat balanced again.


	4. Bed: All Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the chapter where Alucard fully explains what happened on That Night and is probably where this fic hits its Peak Heavy, so proceed with the appropriate caution as it suits you.

**Bed: All Together**

The first night the three of them all shared the bed together at last, Alucard fell just short of bringing one more crucial wall down with him. What in Hell had possessed him into thinking he could accomplish those three major components—join Trevor and Sypha _and_ fully elaborate on the circumstances of what happened with Taka and Sumi _while also_ finally displaying the rest of his silver burns—in the same night? He and Trevor and Sypha had been together in the castle for days, but although they tended to stay physically close together, most of their interactions had been fairly muted. A lot of time in the libraries, a lot of time on the grounds, a lot of time in the kitchen. There were still bits and pieces of recent events that they hadn’t fully opened up to each other about yet, and Alucard was still holding onto by far the biggest one. But if anything, the small-talk and occasional long stretches of companionable silence felt more like decompression than anything else, which was very much welcome.

Alucard had been rehearsing in his head for a while how exactly he was going to explain that night, with little lasting success. It felt so strange that this one huge event, arguably the second-most emotionally cataclysmic experience he’d had in his life, would be so difficult to just _say_. His first—the night they’d defeated Dracula—had almost seemed simple. He was able to just say it then, and he had: “I killed my father.” But this time it just felt like there was so much _more_ that needed to be said. It wasn’t just “this happened,” because the “this” now referred to multitudes; a build-up, not a singular. That first night sharing a bed with Trevor and Sypha, he found himself opening his mouth to speak on several occasions but ultimately failing. It was almost like Sypha had described in her nightmare, as if there was a hand at the back of his throat squeezing just enough air out of him so that he could breathe but couldn’t talk. Alucard almost wanted to smack himself on the forehead when he finally had the epiphany of what the crucial difference between those nights had been: the second time, he had ended everything alone; the first time, he hadn’t. He’d had friends with him. There was so much less to say in the end because so much less needed to be said.

_I was alone…before._

He had no other witnesses to the night his would-be protégés had turned on him. The burden of truly telling what had happened would be his alone, and that was what made it the hardest to just say. So, he decided to show first.

“I never did share with you the full extent of my silver burns, did I?” Alucard sat on the edge of their bed in his nightdress, having been looking at the wall for a while in one last effort to compose himself. He turned slightly in Trevor and Sypha’s general direction as he said this, wanting to show that he wasn’t just speaking idly into the air but also not fully ready to see their reactions. They were both behind him; Trevor already in bed but not sleeping, and Sypha reading quietly by the fireplace.

“Believe me, I wanted to pry further after our night of looking at scars, but Sypha wouldn’t let me,” Trevor grumbled, sheets shifting as he turned around and sat upright.

“You have a right to know now,” Alucard said as Sypha put her book down and approached them.

“Please don’t call it that,” she said, seating herself near Alucard on the bed. “You’ve already told us that something terrible happened to your body. None of this is our ‘right,’ only yours.”

“Well, actually,” Trevor countered, punctuated with a cough that Alucard couldn’t quite identify as a deliberate attention-getter or an honest clearing of the throat. “If he was wounded by something taken from the Belmont Hold, then I might…possibly…have a right…to know…eventually…”

Sypha side-eyed him. “Even after you bequeathed everything to him?”

“No, you’re both right,” said Alucard, causing both his partners to look back at him with matching raised brows. He stood up. “This knowledge _is_ my right, which means I can decide what to do with it. And I’m deciding that you _do_ both need to know at some point, so I’m choosing now.” He angled himself away from them slightly, gripped the fabric of his nightdress, and began pulling it over his head before he had a chance for second thoughts and prolonged this further. Alucard averted his gaze as he shucked the rest of it off and turned back to face Trevor and Sypha, holding the garment in one hand in front of his nether regions and leaving the rest of him completely bare. The burns—his scars—seared like grotesque latticework across the entire front of his body with a sudden heat he knew he must be imagining, but that didn’t make the marks themselves any less real. The sound of two breaths catching met his ears, and he took one more breath of his own and a hard blink before daring to look back at them. Why was he so afraid to see them in the moment when they saw him? He knew their reactions couldn’t be much broader than horror and disgust, but why did that scare him?

_They’ll think less of you. They’ll see it all as a mark of shame. You’re only causing them more pain by sharing yours._

Trevor and Sypha both had water and fire in their eyes. Sypha clutched a hand to her mouth as tears blossomed, catching the light from the fireplace in a way that gave her face an almost unearthly gleam—one that nearly unsettled Alucard as much the thoughts he had feared were behind them. Trevor didn’t need any extra light. His tears looked ready to boil over.

“H-how did…why w-would they…” Sypha stammered, at a loss for words Alucard didn’t know she was capable of. He followed Trevor’s gaze down his body as they both realized that two of the burns intersected over his groin. The Belmont’s eyes shrank almost to pinpricks.

“ _If they castrated you, too,_ ” he practically roared, “ _I’ll…_ ”

“No! They didn’t—” Alucard paused. He turned to look at Sypha, trying his best to say _can I show…?_ with his eyes. As a nomadic Speaker, and especially after spending weeks traveling with and in bed with Trevor Belmont, Sypha hardly seemed like a “proper lady” who would need her “delicate sensibilities” protected. But Alucard felt that his mother’s spirit itself would manifest to smack him upside the head if he freely exposed himself to a woman like that. In a more coherent moment, he probably would have realized that that didn’t necessarily apply to scenarios like this, involving sharing secrets with established lovers. But in the meantime, he waited for Sypha’s okay. She gave a quick nod, which Alucard returned before letting the rest of his nightdress fall to the floor. Trevor let out a shuddering breath which, had this been far earlier in their relationship, Alucard might have misinterpreted as _thank god his cock is intact_ instead of _thank god they didn’t hurt him more._

“Jesus wept,” Trevor half-whispered.

“When we came back,” said Sypha, wiping the tears from one cheek, “you…said that those two in front of the castle…they had ‘tried to dispose of’ you. …H-how close did they come, if they did all of that to you?”

Alucard looked at her with his mouth tightened, eyebrows trembling, vision blurring yet again. “Close enough.”

They had disposed of the staked corpses days ago, shortly after the three of them had reunited. Alucard didn’t want them buried, as the presence of their bodies on the grounds but out of sight felt too much like something that would haunt him further, but he was equally hesitant about burning them on a pyre. Too reminiscent of his mother’s death. Trevor and Sypha, however, had their own reservations about a pyre after seeing the town of Lindenfeld go up in columns of flame. It was eventually Trevor who made the bold decision that they should do the pyre anyway just to “get it over with.” The three of them stood together, hand clenched in hand, before this one fire that they could actually control, and it brought some small catharsis that they hadn’t quite expected. Now, Alucard wasn’t sure if finally sharing the story of how the two aspiring hunters had ended up there would feel like an exhumation, or like one last shovel of dirt over the grave.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” said Trevor, straightening himself up fully and looking Alucard dead in the eyes. “Who. _were_ they?”

 _Now_.

Alucard swallowed hard, took another breath, and began: “Their names were Sumi and Taka.”

He told Trevor and Sypha about how the two youths had approached him with a failed entrance, how they had shared their story of slavery and escape from a vampire court in Japan, how they had come to him to learn so they could return to their homeland and free the rest of their people, how they had said they were alone in this world—how Alucard had thought the two were siblings at first, but in actuality had just grown up together and shared an almost familial bond—how he had welcomed them into his home, had cooked for them, trained with them, and shown them all around both the castle and the Belmont Hold. About how even after everything, they thought he was keeping secrets from them.

“…and then, they…came into my room one night.” Alucard was now sitting hunched over at the head of the bed, hugging his knees slightly and staring fixedly at his wrists, still naked apart from the nightdress he had haphazardly draped over his legs and was clutching at in one hand. Trevor and Sypha flanked him on either side, listening intently. “And they said…‘you’ve been so alone…it’s time for your re-…war-…d…’” His voice choked around “reward,” and he could think of no other time when a single word had taken that much _physical_ effort to get out. Alucard felt himself shaking, but continued, “and I…I believed them. I thought they were…a-and then, they…laid me back d-down on the bed…” The shaking turned into a shiver which sent his teeth chattering. He felt very cold, but couldn’t yet ask for the warmth sitting—offered—on either side of him, hoping instead that holding himself closer and clutching the nightdress tighter would somehow make it better. “They both…k-kissed me and…started…undressing, and…I-I’ve never…been with…anyone like that…before, n-never…had anyone… _give themselves_ to me like that before…” His face was dripping wet with tears by now, but he made no effort to stymie them. He had to keep going. “…and…I wanted it… _thought_ I wanted it…so badly…n-not…not even really for pleasure, but just… _with_ me. And…th-they…they _did_ …have their way with me…and I…just went along with it…I _let_ them. I could… _s-smell_ the approaching malice on them…the apprehension…and I _let them_ anyway…because I thought that…whatever c-came next…couldn’t be m-more painful…than asking them to stop.” Alucard heard the nightdress tearing in his fingers and took one last deep shuddering breath before concluding this verbal re-opening of his wounds. “And once they’d…finished with me…they tried to finish me off. The silver came out…b-bound me to the bed…burned me…they held up swords, said I’d…been lying to them, keeping things from them. I tried to talk them down, but they wouldn’t…my only way left…t-to stop them…was to call my sword, and…well, you’ve s-seen the rest.”

The silence that hung in the air was like a cold sweat—chilly and unpleasant and not unlike the haze after waking from a nightmare and realizing that, even though the bad dream had ended, the emotions from it would haunt for far longer. Alucard hazarded a glance each at his partners on either side of him. Trevor was staring transfixed at the burns on Alucard’s arms, eyes quivering but unable to return his gaze. Sypha looked like she might break if anything touched her, but there was also a tension in her shoulders that suggested she was ready to spring forward and throw her arms around Alucard at any moment. He looked into her eyes and saw no judgement, no fear. Then he realized she had started reaching out an arm to him the same way he had after waking her from her nightmare, but there was a quiet urgency in her movement to match the magnitude of what had just been told.

“…May I?” she asked. Alucard hesitated.

“Wait.” As much as he wanted to say _yes_ right away, that was nearly impossible while he was in this state in the immediate wake of reliving that night out loud. He hurriedly shoved his nightdress back on, brushed away the hair that had stuck to his wet face, and then nodded fervently. “Please.” Her arms around him were strong and tight, but laden only with the intent of comfort and love. His chill began to quickly subside. Just as Alucard was about to return the hug, he felt a much greater warmth envelope him from behind. Trevor was now holding him tight too, his face buried in the crook of the dhampir’s neck. Alucard took a deep breath and then, both to his surprise and relief, took Trevor’s hands in his and reached their arms out further so that they could both hold Sypha as well. As he laced his fingers with the hunter’s, he felt what seemed like Trevor whimpering against him. But upon focusing his ears more, he realized that Trevor was actually speaking—just barely perceptible but no less anguished: “ _god I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…_ ”

They stayed bundled together that way for a long while, just breathing, weeping quietly, taking each other in. Eventually, Trevor broke the silence by speaking in earnest.

“You talked about having someone give themselves to you,” he said. “I’m assuming you’d…like that from us, too?”

“Yes, of course I’d love whatever you’re willing to give,” said Alucard, frankly surprised that his voice was working so readily again. “I just can’t receive—or give myself back—properly yet. My mind and heart want to, but…my body won’t let me.” He could actually feel Trevor’s brow crease behind him.

“And you’d trust us with that?” he asked. “Even after everything you went through with…them?”

“When I said I smelled malice and apprehension on them,” Alucard explained, “I wasn’t exaggerating. Emotions have a marked effect on their respective bodies, perceptible even in the taste and smell of blood, sweat, tears. It’s…something vampire senses have a natural affinity for. I could sense some sort of impending ill-intent on them—the blood quickening, the nervousness in their sweat—and…I chose to ignore it.” Sypha squeezed him again.

“Please stop putting this blame on yourself for what happened that night,” she said. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Although, all this does beg the question,” said Trevor, “…how do _we_ smell?”

Sypha snorted wetly into the front of Alucard’s nightdress and shook a little, which he realized after a moment was actually her stifling a burst of laughter. He allowed himself a small smile too, in silent amusement at _Trevor Belmont_ asking that question unironically, even in a context as comparatively weighty as this.

“You both smell…sad, and a little scared. Distraught, I suppose would be the right word,” said Alucard, returning a reassuring squeeze. “But also kindly and, well…safe.”

The evening _had_ felt like an exhumation in the end, but one that was to be followed by a more proper interment this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple tidbits of housekeeping: it was [confirmed by Sam Deats on Twitter](https://twitter.com/SamuelDeats/status/1235559698411249664?s=20) that Taka and Sumi aren't siblings (I'd thought they were for a while too, admittedly) and also that [Netflix Alucard is officially bisexual.](https://twitter.com/SamuelDeats/status/1237282562671890432?s=20) So if you ever want to reference that part of him without citing arguably the most controversial scene in the whole show, you can indeed!


	5. Wrists: Trevor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The continuing adventures of Questionable Coping Mechanisms with Trevor Belmont, but Bless Him He Tries.

**Wrists: Trevor**

“You know what I think you should do?”

“Depends, are you about to give me a single statement or a list?”

“I think you need a repeat of the night we met.”

The three of them were in the kitchen a few mornings later, and Alucard needed to pause for a moment with his knife halfway out of the jam jar as he mentally cycled through which elements of that first night Trevor could possibly be referring to. Waking him from a coffin nap? Dueling? …Threatening to tear his throat out?

Turns out he wasn’t too far off.

“You want me to pin you to the floor in an underground chamber and hold my fangs so close to you that you’re inches from a death you don’t fear?”

Trevor went an odd shade of red that Alucard took as anger at first, until he realized the Belmont was actually…blushing.

“…A bit,” he said. “Well, maybe…not entirely that second part…”

“And you think this will benefit me how, exactly?” Alucard only glanced away from Trevor momentarily in the interest of making sure he smeared the jam _on_ his chunk of bread instead of next to it. He returned his gaze and maintained unblinking eye contact with one skeptical eyebrow raised, raising the makeshift pastry to his mouth and taking a slightly larger bite than he intended.

“I’m…not too sure, honestly, except…” he shot a glance at Sypha first. She had just picked up a particularly large berry from the bowl in front of her and seemed to be holding off eating it until she heard how Trevor’s sentence would end. “…you miss feeling in control?”

Alucard wasn’t entirely sure how to take that remark at first, nor the fact that Sypha’s reaction was to slightly raise her eyebrows in a knowing fashion before popping the berry into her mouth. Still, this was a sober and fully-rested Trevor Belmont talking, so Alucard was especially keen to see just where he was going with all this.

“That’s…not completely inaccurate,” he said. “But let me see if I understand you properly: you want to relinquish your own sense of control for mine?”

“I can manage my own level of control,” Trevor replied, reaching for a slice of dried meat with fingers that, in most circumstances, didn’t tremble. Seeing this, Alucard was about to voice doubt, but then Sypha spoke up.

“He’s actually not talking out of his rear on this one,” she said. “Well, not like _that_ , but…”

“ _Sypha-a_ …” Trevor hissed sheepishly through gritted teeth.

“My point being,” Sypha continued, “it’s an unorthodox suggestion, for sure, but I wouldn’t dismiss it. Just make sure you actually talk it out fully before you get started. I can’t guarantee I’d be the best moderator.” Trevor’s blush had stumbled back in, turning his face roughly the same colors as undercooked beef.

“Shit, you know what, forget I said anything,” Trevor said as he hurried to his feet and made his way towards the door, dried meat still clutched in one hand. “I’m going out to catch a fowl, you’re welcome, never mind.”

So much for that, then.

“He’ll come around soon enough,” said Sypha, mopping up the berry juice on her fingers with a chunk of bread before taking a small bite. “He always does.”

Alucard might need some more…verbal help processing this. “I know Trevor Belmont to be many things, but he’s not a coward,” he said. “Which makes me almost afraid to ask what could’ve possibly spooked him to that extent.”

“Oh, that?” Sypha reached for her tea. “That was not fear, that was embarrassment.”

“…I’m almost more afraid to ask now.”

“It’s not wrong at all, really,” Sypha said after a hearty sip. “I’m sure you’ve seen that there is actually quite a soft core under all that Belmont bluster, and I’ve found that it manifests…in bed in some interesting ways.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” said Alucard, glazing his words with a mild layer of sarcasm. “Perhaps that’s what the box of…”

“I was not talking about impotence, and you know it.” Sypha’s tilted mouth and creased brow held for a moment before shifting to a small knowing smile again. “I meant he’s more of a submissive type.”

“Submissive…in bed?”

“Yes. Obviously it’s not a universal arrangement, but I’ve found that there are some times during sex when the people involved have a…how best to put this…an agreed-upon power imbalance? But, it’s not about power, it’s about trust. It’s about…handing over the reins to someone you know will steer you both on the right path, and who will always hand the reins back when you’re ready to stop. It’s not about _letting_ someone do whatever they want to you, it’s about _agreeing_ to…”

Sypha suddenly froze and Alucard realized how tense he’d gotten. The subtleties of what was wrong with That Night were becoming increasingly clear. It wasn’t just the broad strokes of _I let them do that to me_ , but the deeper understanding of what exactly all that entailed. He was by no means sexually ignorant in a book-learning sense—Dr. Lisa Tepes had made plenty sure that no child of hers would go off into the world without that knowledge—but that was not at all the same as experience. Alucard had been much more passive than not when Taka and Sumi had come to his bed, and the few actions he had taken were some blend of base reaction and following suit with them. _Touch them too, kiss them back, this is how it works, you’re enjoying it, keep going._ There had been no real communication, only a declaration of intent from them. No agreement, only touch. And it looked like Sypha was realizing how she’d just illustrated that to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to…”

“N-no, it’s…I…thank you,” Alucard stuttered, seating himself across the table from her and wondering if he now had any appetite left for the one—maybe two—bites of bread left between his forefingers. “I did need to hear that. It was…actually quite enlightening, in more ways than one. So you think that Trevor ran off because he was embarrassed at being so openly submissive with me all of a sudden?”

“That, or,” Sypha considered, “he was thinking about potentially sexual things in a less-than-sexual context and his mind tripped over itself and landed face-first in a shrub. Again. I expect I will have to have words with him about this later.”

“Actually…” said Alucard, giving his remaining bread one more look and sticking it in his mouth, chewing contemplatively, and swallowing before turning back to Sypha. “With some minor alterations, this wild idea of his might have some merit after all.”

* * *

“You want to break my wrists?”

“No, I want to break _my_ wrists _from_ you.”

“To be honest…with you, that could go either way.”

Alucard stifled a “well you’re not wrong” with a hard twist of his mouth before continuing. They were on the grounds just outside the castle later that afternoon, sheltered in one of its shadows to avoid the glare of a sun that was a few hours from ending an almost offensively bright day. “My point being…I thought some more on what you said earlier about lack of control, and I realized you may be onto something.”

Trevor regarded Alucard skeptically, a crease on his brow and a finger on his chin, and Alucard sensed that Trevor was _not_ about to stifle his next comment successfully. “Sorry, do I need my ears checked, or did you just compliment me for a good idea outside of a battle context?”

“Well, whether or not it actually works at all remains to be seen,” said Alucard. “But what I wanted to try was this: I’m not going to put _you_ in a hold to regain a feeling of agency, _you’re_ going to put _me_ in a hold that I’m going to break out of.”

“Right. You’re going to break my wrists.”

Alucard let Trevor have that jibe again for another few moments before shoving his hands forward. The sleeves held back enough that the silver burns were fully on display. Trevor’s breath caught slightly and he drew back just a hair’s breadth. “I won’t,” said Alucard, finding a comforting steadiness in his own voice and looking Trevor straight in the eyes. “And neither will you. Alright?”

They both stood there in silence at first. Then, sucking in one more deep breath and replying “alright,” Trevor rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers before stepping forward and reaching out for Alucard’s wrists. The Belmont’s hands hovered for a few moments, and Alucard realized that he was holding them above his wrists in just such a way that blocked the silver burns from view—for Alucard, anyway. He suspected the same might be true from Trevor’s angle. Trying to work out the psychological damage from that night while blocking out the remnants of the catalyst from the physical damage. Whatever perverse poetry lay therein, Alucard decidedly set it aside.

Trevor grabbed his wrists, hesitantly, and Alucard broke free almost instantly. He wasn’t sure exactly what sensation he was expecting against his skin when it happened. Heat? A fervent need for more touch? A mild bolt of panic, dulled by the comfort of reunion? A strong bolt of panic? What he instead felt was much closer to what he’d initially expected to feel the night that Trevor had kissed those scars: irritation of rough skin on rough skin. Breaking loose felt more like brushing something off, and frankly Alucard took comfort in his reaction being irritation instead of fear. The hands that had grasped his wrists were battled-hardened and calloused. Between feeling this and seeing Trevor’s scars in bed, Alucard was again reminded that the hunter’s emotional roughness wasn’t for nothing and didn’t come from nowhere. While Alucard had taken the—how had Sypha put it?—Belmont bluster as something of an annoyance when they’d first met, he now took it as a kind of reassurance; a sense that they could both look at each other and say _I know you’ve been hurt because I’ve been hurt too._ Alucard would heartily welcome Trevor’s gentleness and somewhat awkward empathy again once they were finished out here. But that wasn’t what he needed from the Belmont right now, and they weren’t finished out here yet.

“Come on,” Alucard said, looking up and trying to get a read on Trevor’s expression. “I know you’ve got more in you than that.” There was that hesitation again before Trevor gripped him a second time, with appropriately more firmness. Alucard broke free again and hissed, “harder.” They went several more times, Trevor very gradually increasing his grip but still staying well away from what Alucard knew to be his greater potential. “You’re holding back,” Alucard growled, “and you and I both know this isn’t about risk to your wrists.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” Trevor growled back, but with a hint of something else that almost sounded like…a plea? “It’s about _your_ wrists.”

“Yes, we’ve already established that.”

“But, do you want me to _hurt_ you there?” The plea was sounding louder now.

“You won’t,” Alucard broke free again, “and I’m not asking you to—but despite your doubts, you keep gripping me anyway when I ask. And I think it’s because something in you _needs_ to.” It was dawning on him that, in a way, this _was_ turning into a repeat of when they first met. Alucard goading Trevor on about his character _—“I asked you a question: do you care? You’re either the last son of a warrior dynasty or a lucky drunk. Which is it?”—_ was hardly new. To say nothing of his other remarks in the Belmont Hold which Sypha had correctly diagnosed as just Alucard projecting his own insecurities onto Trevor, even though Alucard had not yet admitted to her just how right she was about that. This time, however, there was a strange sense of freedom to this round of verbal sparring. There was something about this that they both just needed to get out of their systems and, whether consciously or not, they knew that this was arguably the safest place for it to happen. Trevor’s face was strained, a small fire in his eyes beneath a shaky brow as he seized Alucard’s wrists with his greatest force yet. Alucard paused first, looking Trevor in the eyes while keeping his own brow un-furrowed and asking, “are you hoping your grip can erase my pain from before? Or is it because sometimes you don’t know how to answer to the world with anything but your fists?”

“And sometimes that’s all I CAN do!” Trevor finally burst out, his grip on Alucard nearing his full strength at last. “Sometimes that’s _all I’m good at!_ ”

“And that’s why I’ve asked this of you!” said Alucard, breaking his wrists free again with some cathartic punctuation. Trevor grabbed him again and their movements peaked into a sort of frantic dance of cuffs and flying arms as Alucard continued, “I know your brawn and your raw strength, and I _trust_ you with that!”

“—I trust you with _me!_ ”

They stood with their hands braced against each other as the tension began to dissipate with that final burst. Trevor sounded like he needed a little help remembering how to breathe properly. Alucard eased his own breathing down and saw Trevor follow his lead for a few breaths before settling into a natural rhythm again. A cool breeze drifted by, highlighting the beads of sweat they had both worked up over their warm bodies. They let their hands down and Trevor wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

“Maybe this is enough for now,” said Alucard.

“Yeah, let’s stop here,” Trevor agreed, stooping down to sit back on the grass. Alucard sat beside him, resting forward against one knee and taking in the caress of the early-evening winds.

“…Thank you, by the way.”

“For suggesting this crazy shit, or for going through with it?”

“Either, or both.” Alucard straightened a bit to look over at Trevor. “I think it was some use to both of us, in our own ways. Just…a vent.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” said Trevor with a slight grunt as he stretched, and Alucard heard his joints give a few clicks. “You know, you walk a tight overlap between someone I don’t want to get hurt and someone I know can take quite a few hits. I’m glad this worked…somehow…I think…”

“It still felt quite rough,” said Alucard, with a small arm-stretch of his own. “Perhaps we should try to soften with something next.”

“We should. Hmm, c’mere.” Trevor patted his thigh invitingly and Alucard scooted over to lay his head down on it, letting out a gradually relaxed sigh as he sank back into the hunter’s sturdy warmth. After another few moments, they laced their fingers together and Alucard was once again grateful that this was a skin-to-skin gesture he had reclaimed for the most part. He ran his thumb over some of the callouses on Trevor’s hand, tracing them slightly, taking in the difference between the scratchy spots and the comparatively smooth skin around them.

Rough and soft indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Director's Commentary from when I was first juggling that opening scene around on Discord:
> 
> \- (the gist so far is Trevor getting a Thirst thing and a Healing thing conflated to an extent, and then him and Alucard trying to parse out how to possibly turn that into an Actual Healing Thing, or at least a Potentially Healing Thing)  
> \- (on top of me trying to parse out exactly how all this is unfolding, because I thought I was starting this chapter simple but I may've over-complicated it really fast)  
> \- The healing/thirst conflation might make more sense once they establish what the thing actually is.  
> \- One of the running themes I have is that Alucard is sensitive about his wrists in particular, and this chapter is going to have him and Trevor doing some...not exactly sparring, but some maneuvers with wrist-holds as a means of reclaiming agency.  
> \- But when Trevor first brings it up, it starts to come out as I Am Ready To Bottom For You.  
> \- Which Trevor starts backtracking on after a minute, until they realize "wait hang on, there might actually be some helpful non-sexual value to this if we try it right."  
> \- (Whether or not they _do_ try it right remains to be seen)  
> \- Sypha's remark in the excerpt I shared was basically her going "I don't think he was ready to exude that much Bottom Energy in front of you yet."  
> \- A tricky thing in writing for my first OT3: working out the Venn diagrams of whose comfort levels are where with who about what.  
> \- ...oh shit maybe I should make some actual Venn diagrams for this?


	6. Wrists: Sypha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alucard and Sypha go for a walk in the woods and visit an odd old artifact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi welcome to "I'm so sorry this took so long but *gestures vaguely at the world in general because holy shit*" with a heaping side of "adventures in getting too caught up in temperature metaphors." For folks waiting so patiently for this, you have my humblest thanks. (Also I checked and apparently this is my most Subscribed AO3 fic of all time?? Y'all are amazing and I love you <3 <3 <3)

**Wrists: Sypha**

The moon outside seemed remarkably generous with its light a few nights later. Alucard lay back in bed with one claw out, gingerly running it along the scars on his left arm. Touching without really touching. When he’d first had to deal with the burns, they needed the proper attention of his bare fingers, and he wasn’t that keen on accidentally tearing himself open. But he felt more comfortable being a little dangerous with them, now that they hadn’t been fresh for weeks.

Things tended to feel different from a distance.

Alucard had no idea what span of time would be enough distance from That Night, or even what would qualify as “enough.” Probably a point where he could think back on it and not be overwhelmed with the sensation of his entire chest cavity turning to cold stone and wishing he could just yank it out to make the pain stop. He did have one better idea about a different desired distance, though: sharing a bed with both Trevor and Sypha at once was now vastly preferred to any alternatives. They lay asleep on his left, Trevor on the other end of the bed and Sypha between them—an arrangement she had affectionately dubbed “the oven” on one occasion. Alucard wondered if she had more names planned for their other configurations, silently hoping she did. It was silly, but no less charming.

He smiled to himself and retracted the claw, closing the distance between his hands.

It occurred to Alucard that he’d never really assigned descriptions to the texture of his skin. Of course, that wasn’t exactly something people tended to take time to stop and think about. But now it was something he mused over faintly as he ran his thumb along the upper length of his forearm, tracing the burn scars like roads in the rain. They were smoothing out now, still strange to the touch but notably less unpleasant. Not disappearing but seeming more…natural? Manageable? Looking and feeling very gradually more like flesh than scar tissue. There was a faintly waxy edge to them, like a seam between the part of him that was broken but putting itself back together, and the part that remained untouched—well, that depended on the precise definition of “touch.” In a more abstract sense, touch tended to indicate warmth of some variety. Saying “I’m touched” was always associated with the sensation of heart-warming. And heat tended to melt wax. Wax was by no means an unpleasant texture, but it didn’t really belong on skin. When it was hot enough to melt, it would always take that heat with it, and it would burn.

Alucard decided that his skin was not wax— _he_ was not wax. He would not be harmed by heat, and he would not transfer that heat to harm others.

Cold, on the other hand…

It was strange that even though he felt like cold was something partially built into him, it was never something he’d really stopped to explore. Alucard thought back, first to that night with Sypha when they had expressed mutual gratitude at him “not feeling cold anymore,” and then further back. A few days after she and Trevor had gone on their way, Alucard had ventured out into the woods behind the Hold to see what had become of the giant ice pillar that Sypha had used to lift them out and then launched into the distance. It was still mostly there, preserved partly by its size and the cold weather, and had left enough of a crater in its wake that Alucard wouldn’t be surprised if it turned into a small pond come summer. Sypha was truly incredible.

And she had a relationship with the cold without being defined by it.

* * *

Alucard took Sypha out to see it the next day. Or at least, what was left of it. The core still floated lazily in the muddy trench and seemed to have become a curiosity for the local wildlife, as indicated by the pair of deer lapping at it for a drink when Alucard and Sypha stepped into the clearing.

“Still sturdy, in its own way,” said Sypha, as the deer bounded off back into the trees. “Although I must admit, I much prefer your setup.”

“Well, there are worse things to do with one’s free time than engineering projects,” said Alucard, with a half-shrug of one shoulder. “Besides, I can float but I can’t fly. And self-levitation can only get you so far when you’re trying to get back up on something much higher than your own feet. Which reminds me, Trevor mentioned that you’ve…achieved flight yourself now?”

“…He did, did he?”

“Not in much detail, I’m afraid. He just said ‘hey did you know Sypha can fly now?’ and left it open for you to elaborate.”

A certain mischievous smirk returned to Sypha’s face that Alucard had missed dearly. In their first few days back, he’d worried that the cataclysm at Lindenfeld had dashed that expression from her forever. But he’d caught bits of it gradually returning since then: seeing her glance over a page in a spellbook before turning the flame of Trevor’s reading candle green just to confuse him, her reaction to Alucard’s confession that he’d never actually tried playing a musical instrument before, lots of little moments. Now it was back with a radiance that Alucard could almost feel on his skin, and could almost hear: _watch me do something amazing._

In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d only been imagining that statement after all, when just a moment later there was a flash and a sharp rush of air from where Sypha had been standing and Alucard looked up to see her suddenly in the treetops. Not _standing_ in them, but _hovering_ at their level. Two jets of flame held obediently at her palms and kept her aloft as she spun around once in midair and zoomed overhead, doing two full circuits over the trees surrounding the clearing like a shooting star putting on a show. Alucard gazed on in awe as she moved through the air without wings, though the combined effect of the flames and the dramatic ripples of her Speaker robes did give her a striking semblance to the dazzling Firebird of myth. She swooped down for a finale right on top of the frozen pillar, hovering above it for a few moments as the flames from her hands bore indentations into the ice, before dispelling them and dropping into a quick hop from the pillar back to solid ground. Alucard realized with embarrassment that he’d left his mouth open slightly, easily shifting it into an impressed smile.

“Well?” said Sypha, grinning back and slowly raising an expectant eyebrow.

“Well,” Alucard answered, feeling his own smile widening more, “mother taught me that heat rises, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen it implemented quite like _that_ before.”

“And now you have.”

“Now I have.” Alucard continued to gaze fondly at her before letting his sight drift back to the pillar and then up towards the tree line. “I’m sorry you never got to meet mother, she would have absolutely _adored_ you.”

Sypha let a few sparks dance on one hand. “And the magic wouldn’t have bothered her?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Alucard chuckled lightly with a small headshake. “When you live in a place like the castle, there are some things you just get used to. Although, since she was a woman of science, she still would have insisted that you show her how your spells worked. Might even have asked about the potential of healing magic.” He started to cross his arms before finding himself absently rubbing at one of his wrist scars again.

Sypha noticed and looked intently at them, her brows hovering in an odd limbo between sorrow and curiosity. “May I try something?” she asked, holding out a hand.

Alucard paused, then held out a wrist to her. “Alright, and what might this be?”

Sypha took his arm gently and called forth a smooth chunk of ice with her free hand. “I’m…not quite sure if it’s possible to infuse my elements with extra magical properties, but now I’m curious to see if I can do anything to ease your scars.”

Alucard blinked. He had touched cold water plenty of times since That Night, but he couldn’t remember his bare skin touching ice. Were this anyone else, Alucard would have been more apprehensive than mildly confused. Mildly confused and…welcoming, somehow? Reason stated that putting ice on bare flesh would usually be unpleasant, but Alucard found himself looking forward to it in a way he couldn’t quite put into words. Maybe it was just that it was coming from a warm source.

“Somehow I doubt that any kind of cold compress would do much on weeks-old burns,” he said, “but you’re certainly welcome to try.” Sypha nodded, and slowly began running the ice chunk along his wrist.

The expected shiver never came. Perhaps it was cool enough outside that the change in temperature on his skin didn’t feel terribly drastic, or maybe the warmth of Sypha’s hand on his arm balanced things out somewhat. Alucard watched her work, still not feeling much different and still wondering what specifically she might be trying to do. She moved the ice chunk back and forth across the back of his wrist, almost like a painter filling in a solid color. Minutes passed. He could feel the ice slowly melting, the warmth of his own skin turning the edges into a thin layer of water that slid idly down the sides of his wrist. _Pat. Pat. Pat._ The drips tapped the ground beneath them as they fell, and the speaker let out a hiss under her breath.

“ _Fix it._ ”

Looking back up at Sypha, Alucard noticed just how much sheer _focus_ was in her eyes, as though she was willing something to happen just by staring hard enough. The creases in her brow grew more pronounced, giving her face a darker edge that started unsettlingly to remind Alucard of Trevor’s face when he was angry. He felt her grip on him tighten.

“Sypha, what—”

She wheeled around, letting go of him but still holding the ice in one hand. In the half-second it took Sypha to turn and face the remains of the pillar, the ice in her hand burst into a spear like a frozen lightning bolt. With a roar unlike anything Alucard had heard from her before, Sypha hurled the spear towards the ice pond, where it exploded with a sharp rush of frozen wind. The icy dust began to clear, mixing its faint twinkling with Sypha’s lightly labored breathing, and revealing the new structure that sprung from the side of the melting pillar and was now holding it fast into the ground. A whole arrows’ quiver of icy spears, thrice Alucard’s height, as though water in a lake had been frozen at the moment a boulder was hurled into it.

“I am…still trying to fix things…” Sypha finally said, a slight wheeze in her voice. “I know that I have traveled all my life, I’ve seen so many things change, I’ve been shown so many things that don’t last. But I’ve also seen so much mending, so much repair, so much…taking something broken and making it whole again…and sometimes only for it to break again. When Trevor and I were gone from here, we stopped so much from being broken, we fixed so much…and everything was always well again when we left…” The wheeze had turned into a tremble, and Alucard felt a tremble of his own in his right arm. It started to make a motion towards putting a hand on Sypha’s shoulder, but was interrupted by the dual realization of _Maybe don’t touch her yet_ and, more significantly, _…She has her own scars on that shoulder, where she was wounded and patched up and moved on._ “Why can’t they stay…why can’t broken things just stay fixed…”

“Sypha…” Alucard began, hesitantly, “it’s…surely it’s better for a broken thing to be fixed and broken again than to never be fixed in the first place?”

“But then what happens when something is so broken that barely any of it is left?” Sypha’s clenched fists tightened, and something in Alucard’s mind clicked. He thought back to her mischievous smile from before. Just because the events of Lindenfeld had ultimately not erased that smile from her, it didn’t mean that the return of that smile had banished the pain of Lindenfeld in any equal measure.

“I…I don’t know,” said Alucard, looking at her back and then past her to the icicle flower. Eventually the spring and summer warmth would wear it away too, returning it to water, returning it to the earth, returning it to where it could help sprout new grass and flowers and trees. “Or perhaps…there’s no harm in just keeping what little is left, or…turning it into something new. I guess there…isn’t always a direct path between a thing broken and a thing fixed…”

 _Or people broken and people fixed,_ he thought as the additional realization dawned on him.

“Yes…” Sypha said, still shakily, “…yes, of course you’re right. I just…wish all of my fixes would _matter_.”

Alucard’s doubt fell away as he took two swift strides forward, turning to face Sypha, and clapping a firm hand on her shoulder—the hand on the arm she had been holding just a minute before while trying to fix…

“Sypha, _any_ fix matters.”

Their eyes met, locked in understanding before Sypha’s started to wobble slightly…oh. Those were tears. There were no words needed this time, as their leaning into each other happened in unison. Alucard wrapped both arms around her tightly, grounding her as she ground herself to him, her arms clasped firmly at his back and her face buried in his chest. He felt the floodgates finally burst as her first few sobs gave way to an anguished wail that nearly chilled him to the bone, prompting him to hold her even tighter. To keep their mutual warmth. To remind her that he was broken and she was broken and Trevor was broken, but they were all still _there_.

There wasn’t a direct path between people broken and people fixed, and recovery was not a straight line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think any other fic I've seen has done anything with Sypha's ice-evator that she yeeted into the forest after they got out of the Belmont Hold in season 2, and something about it felt like an opportunity being squandered so I went in and took it c:

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like the reunion has been covered pretty thoroughly in other fics by this point, but there was still some stuff I wanted to establish so this turned into an adventure in "let's make these characters a smidge more emotionally mature than usual to get my point across faster so we can get to the meat of the fic." Either way, first Castlevania fic, wish me luck!


End file.
